Necromancing & tagging along in someone else's reading ?

lexico · 27 Oct 2005

The title appears a bit vague, but I don't know how better to say it. For example, when I'm done reading and responding to
1) Threads I started or replied or subscribed to
2) New posts
I often go to "who's online ?" window to see what my fellow forumers are reading. Then I look around for anything interesting from among what is being read at the moment. In real life, it's like, "Hi, Tom ! What you reading right now ?" Well to be more exact, it's like sneaking up on Tom, and reading along the same book right behind his back !"

Does anyone else do this on a regular basis ? I just happen to find it a nice way to get in the flow.

Of course there is the drawback of a possible "stepping on privacy," but there aren't much personal issues or interests that is being known to others. Another drawback might be limiting my scope to what others are interested in. What do you think ? Btw this topic is mildy related to necromancing, that is reviving old threads that have been discussed a while ago, and how I try to keep my necromancing to something more acceptable in that other people were also interested in the topic. Another way of framing the question would be, "Is it better to...

1) revive an old thread ?

2) start a new one, as the older thread with past discussions have its own time and logic ?"

What do you think ?

@Pachipro: Thanks for the encouragement !

@MikeCash: Thanks for sharing your views, and the wonderful questions !

Mike Cash · 27 Oct 2005

You're very welcome. You're one of my favorite interlocutors.

Kara_Nari · 27 Oct 2005

Btw this topic is mildy related to necromancing, that is reviving old threads that have been discussed a while ago, and how I try to keep my necromancing to something more acceptable in that other people were also interested in the topic. Another way of framing the question would be, "Is it better to...

Does this have anything to do with the rebirth of the thread that I was talking about earlier today? I did apologise at the beginning of the thread....

lexico · 27 Oct 2005

I don't think in particular; and that one was pretty recent as far as I am concerned. Here I might be talking about a thread anywhere from 6 months to 3 yrs, hehe........
I see some logic in longer-time members' saying that... well it's been discussed to "death," hahaha....
But no, hardly so in your case, Kara Nari.
See this old one;
for example, What's wrong with the forum ?.

or this, Yakuza
or this, Beautiful Australian Gaijin Woman
or even this, Cute cartoon clip.

See it's not all warn welcome when it comes to old threads... it could be a legacy from the ancient times, maybe ? Let old, napping dogs lie ? :?

miu · 27 Oct 2005

Sometimes it's annoying when a thread keeps popping up even though everyone's quite fed up with it... But then again, who's forcing you to read it? I say it's okay to reply to an old thread if you have something to say ^^

lexico · 27 Oct 2005

mikecash said:
You're very welcome. You're one of my favorite interlocutors.

Much honored, Mike. So are you for that matter. Besides, you bring so much to the forum in terms of pure reason, reliable knowledge, and age-old good sense.

Kinsao · 28 Oct 2005

I think it's good to pop old threads back up if you can sense people might be interested in the subject, because people can easily forget it exists or new members don't look that far back... Maybe I'm biased because in jpop I always rather resurrect an old thread than start a new one, because there are so many threads

so rather than duplicate it I will always search for an existing one. I didn't realise it can annoy people though...

den4 · 28 Oct 2005

lexico said:
Much honored, Mike. So are you for that matter. Besides, you bring so much to the forum in terms of pure reason, reliable knowledge, and age-old good sense.

I'm glad I haven't been found guilty yet of bringing pure reason, reliable knowledge and age-old good sense to these forums

Not sure why I reply to any particular post, other than it strikes my fancy or beats the fancy onto the concrete ground and runs it over several times with a bulldozer just to make sure it doesn't get back up again....

still unsure what you mean by necromancing in the title, though

lexico · 28 Oct 2005

Rough ritual does not become you, den4; I thought you were a mild existence, opposed

to anything violent, as your zen meditation in Frank's zen garden must have instilled peaceful ideas in your head; thus had I presumed, unless I presumed wrong.

den4 said:
I'm glad I haven't been found guilty yet of bringing pure reason, reliable knowledge and age-old good sense to these forums

These forums ? I don't know what you are talking about when I am on this forum and not one of the other these forums that are not this forum. Unless you are talking about one of the infinities of the several degrees of infinities (there are only a finite number of those discovered by the almighty mathematians until now, aleph-0 and aleph-1 infiities), where the constantly self-generating den4 parallels co-exist on the infinitely running universes; that I have no idea which one of the den54's you are... :?

Not sure why I reply to any particular post, other than it strikes my fancy or beats the fancy onto the concrete ground and runs it over several times with a bulldozer just to make sure it doesn't get back up again....

That is what necromancers do; bring them back when they are not supposed to having been run over by bulldozers a number of times considered adequate in order that they might not come back even with the help of a certified necromancer known at the time of the multiple bulldozing.

still unsure what you mean by necromancing in the title, though

Necromancing is a new word coined after the olde words, necromancy, necromancer as in the following;

Necromancy

wiki on Necromancy said:
Necromancy (ﾆ津業津θ津鞍津照津哉津竿陳ｿﾆ津業津?#943;ﾆ陳ｿ) is the alleged divination by which a person raises the spirits of the dead or, in some cases, merely their corpses. The word derives from the Greek ﾆ津業津θ津鞍津?#972;ς (nekros) "dead" and ﾆ津竿陳ｿﾆ津業津柁津?#943;ﾆ陳ｿ (manteia) "divination". It has a subsidiary meaning reflected in an alternative and archaic form of the word, nigromancy, (a folk etymology using Latin niger, "black") in which the magical force of "dark powers" is gained from or by acting upon corpses. A practitioner of necromancy is a necromancer.

Therefore in netterms, necromancing would be the bringing back of olde threads that have long ceased to have much life left in them; in other words, dead, breathless posts devoid of any evocative force either by age, how far deep it is imbedded in the forum archives, how difficult it is to access with a simple search on one or more key words, or the absence of posting activity for an extended period of time, like a dead person. I could also dig up some gruesome pics of necrophilia, but that would be inappropriate considering the forum audience, and I've just had my full strength of dinner which I am not quite ready to part with.

Revenant · 28 Oct 2005

miu said:
I say it's okay to reply to an old thread if you have something to say ^^

If you have something well thought-out to say.

Kinsao · 28 Oct 2005

Revenant said:
If you have something well thought-out to say.

That, my friend, excludes me from responding to anything. ☝

Well - almost.

lexico · 28 Oct 2005

Revenant said:
If you have something well thought-out to say.

I think there are two ways of deciding what is welll thought out and what is not; 1) subjective self-evaluation 2) objective other-evaluation. And then there are the static-vs.-dynamic distinction; 1) time-independent, analytic style and 2) dynamic, time-mediated style. And then there are aphoristic style and the descriptive style. The deductive, the inductive, the illustrative, the reasoning; etc., etc.

Kinsao, you might think you have more to think to make a better response, but your intuitive writing often exceeds what I might have to take some time to work on. I think you are doing great from the other-point of view, though you may disagree.

Pachipro · 29 Oct 2005

Interesting Lex as I also like to browse what guests or Yahoo Spiders are reading and if I come across something interesting that I missed in the past I'll reply to it. For example, I was doing just that when I came across a guest reading a thread about opening up your own English school in Japan. As I had some experience with that and had never seen that thread before I answered as I figured I had something to add in case someone new to the forums had a similar question.

Reviving old threads can be a good thing if someone has something interesting to add. Especially if the thread is a short one. If it is really old, or a long one, one can always insert a hyperlink referring to the old thread and start a new one. Afterall, it really is tedious looking back through the forums to find an interesting thread to reply to.

Reading what the guests are reading is much more interesting as they are probably looking for something specific. Besides it's fun. Kinda like eavesdropping on someone when they don't know it.

Kinsao · 29 Oct 2005

@ Lex: I assume you are referring to (2) - objective other-evaluation?

lexico · 29 Oct 2005

Kinsao said:
@ Lex: I assume you are referring to (2) - objective other-evaluation?

Yes, for sake of consistency, I was speaking from your point of view. I hope I didn't try too hard only to make it harder on you. In other words, I am that other; but I'm sure other others will also agree, don't we all (except you, Kinsao) ? :?

Kinsao · 29 Oct 2005

lexico said:
Yes, for sake of consistency, I was speaking from your point of view. I hope I didn't try too hard only to make it harder on you. In other words, I am that other; but I'm sure other others will also agree, don't we all (except you, Kinsao) ? :?

Oh, so it's you who are the other - I was wondering.

(I keep seeing road signs pointing towards you, by the way.)

Have I agreed to disagree, then? Or maybe my silence is taken as tacit agreement (in this case, disagreement)? :? In any case, I am sure I agree with you (except in such case as I am expected to disagree, in which case I am happy to agree to do so).

n.b. for consistency, I am writing from your point of view.

Maciamo · 29 Oct 2005

Except for topics that are not relevant anymore (eg. 2004 US elections), I would reply to an interesting topic to revive it.

I would create a new thread if the old thread in question had already too many offtopic posts so that no fruitful further discussion could be hoped.

lexico said:
Of course there is the drawback of a possible "stepping on privacy," but there aren't much personal issues or interests that is being known to others.

There is not much "privacy" on a public forum. If people don't want something to be known, they can either refrain from posting it or use a diverted way of raising the issue (without talking about one's personal case, but taking an "theoretical example").

KirinMan · 24 Apr 2007

Reviving an old thread here, as it seems pertinent to the conversation currently going on here on two different threads
.
Seems like this topic has been around the block before.

Davey · 24 Apr 2007

I reply to the thread, I don't care if it is old ( I would care, and make a new one if the thread is from 2003-2004 and all the posts in it are off topic and a mess).

I also often check what other people are doing on jref, and I check the "Who's online" function.

(I still miss you lex...)

Mikawa Ossan · 24 Apr 2007

lexico said:
mikecash said:

Specifically, I wondered if you were just randomly rooting around through old threads and found this one worth replying to or if you found it while doing a search on some term (and if so, what term).

Click to expand...

I might have done something like that 8 months ago when I was still a rookie here; there were tons of really good stuff from the past - ooooh, they were sooo tempting ! I only revived a couple of them out of respect for the forum equilibrium, but I felt rather out of place as I thought it improper behaviour. That was surely a dilemma, what to do, what to do ?

Then I found a reasonable compromise. If I am the only one interested, then reviving it might be an extremely selfish thing to do. Then I discovered the "currently on-line" list where I can see and click a thread that is currently being read by someone else. If the title looks good, I go to it and see if I might be interested in posting a reply. Since there was at least one member or guest reading it at the moment, I am comforted when I reply. But no, I try not to revive an old thread that is not getting any kind of attention from someone else unless I feel really strongly about the topic...

Yeah, I miss Lexico, too.

Zaff · 24 Apr 2007

Who cares if its an old thread its always nice to drag up stuff especially if its an interesting read, just like this thread.

Grandpa Frank · 24 Apr 2007

old folks have bad memories ! ?

Why heck, us old people don't remember posting in or reading a thread after about 3 days. Put her up once a week and I think it's new material.

Uncle Frank

Necromancing & tagging along in someone else's reading ?

If you find a good topic from the past, what would you do ?

1. Reply to it. Who cares if it is old ?

2. Reply to it only if someone else is interested in the subject.

3. Open a new thread in your own wording, as the past should lie in the past.

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